More Articles news

comment

A former Rockland County woman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing her son lost a bid on Friday in the New York State Court of Appeals to have her murder conviction reviewed, according to Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr.

Lacey Spears, who lived in Chestnut Ridge, was convicted in March 2015 of killing her 5-year-old son Garnett-Paul Spears while he was a patient at Westchester Medical Center by injecting large amounts of salt into his feeding tube, according to the DA's office.

“I am extremely pleased that the State’s highest court has declined to review Lacey Spears’ murder conviction, thus bringing greater finality to the jury’s judgment and most importantly, justice for Garnett,” said District Attorney Scarpino.

On Jan. 19, 2014, Garnett was transferred to WMC from Nyack Hospital in Rockland County by Medivac helicopter when without any medical explanation his sodium level rose to an extremely dangerous level. Two days later the small boy died.

Spears who is presumed to have a psychological syndrome called Munchausen by proxy, a disorder in which a caretaker purposely does harm to a child to attract sympathy and attention, provided the medical staff with a medical history for her son, including extensive medical visits, hospitalizations, and invasive surgical procedures.

This history coupled with an unexplained rise in his sodium levels at Nyack Hospital prompted the doctors at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the WMC to suspect Spears of harming her son prompting their call to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.

Search warrants were executed on the Spears’ residence where feeding bags containing extraordinary amounts of sodium were discovered, the DA's office said in a press release in 2015.

An Alabama native, Spears was living with her son in Chestnut Ridge when he died. She moved to Kentucky after his death and was living there when she was arrested.

Spears, who blogged about her son’s many illnesses on social media, is imprisoned at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.